As you all know I passed the written part of the Spanish Drivers license part but now comes the driving part. By law you need to take driving classes even if you know how to drive. You must drive a car provided by your “auto escuela” with a teacher that has control over all the pedals in case you F**& up!

I started 3 days a go and let me tell you lots of fun..Not only are almost all cars here stick shift but probably 99% of the auto escuelas only offer stick shift cars.. Thank god that I do know how to drive a stick since my first car (for those of  you who know me for a while could remember the “slutmobile” (and many of you know why) was a stick… anyway, the driving classes are shared with another student one drives half the class, in our case one drives into Alicante from Playa San Juan where we are and the other drives back.

For those of you who have never been to Europe, I must explain that the streets here are not as wide as in the states…there are certain streets where your car barely fits and where sometimes you must tuck in your rear view mirror because you will hit another car… having said that.. you could imagine just how much fun, I’m having..the teacher is very nice but she lets you know what you are doing wrong  time and time again…

Imagine driving in a city you barely know, some are one way streets with no signage, others so narrow (well I already explained above), while the teacher is telling you turn right here (and it’s a one way street where you can’t go in, she does this to see if you are paying attention), then she is reminding you, look in the rear view mirror, down shift, you are too close to the sidewalk, you forgot the turn signal, your shifting wrong, heel on the floor, you didn’t get on the right lane to go into rotondas (yes, rotondas, there are millions of them here and you need to know from which lane to get in and out, always reminds me of the Chevy Chase movie European Vacation when they are in France in a huge rotonda and it takes him all night long to get out of it, going round and round in circles…..

Ok, so what do you think? My teacher thinks I might be ready for the test mid July, I will let you know so you could all pray for me….

photos flickr by

dcphotolibrary 

autoescuelagong 

bakauatas